Sony killed Concord by sticking with all too familiar marketing tactics: slim to none. Something’s got to change.
We could write a book about the many great things Sony—PlayStation in particular—has done. The one thing they constantly suck at, however, is marketing. Sony has released many cutting edge devices (i.e. the PlayStation Vita and a projector that can literally turn any flat surface into a touch screen), but all these things die on the shelves. I know first hand what it’s like to be burned by PSVR, PSVR2, Vita, Move, Xperia Play….. But Why?
The answer, at its most basic level, is general consumers don’t seem to know these things even exist.
Look at the recent turmoil of the PSVR2. Reviewers and VR enthusiasts have desperately been trying to tell people just how awesome the newest headset is. Sales numbers have been nothing to brag about with PSVR2, otherwise you know Sony would be showcasing these stats. Instead of pushing forward with the headset on PS5, Sony turned to PC to boost sales, and yet again released a product (The PSVR2 adapter) that only a few know about.
Once you head outside of the VR community, talking about a Playstation headset will most likely be met with “That’s a thing?” or “I forgot that existed.” Sony not only totally forgot to tell the world it was coming, they also withheld it from stores for the longest time. Then once it DID hit shelves, they still forgot to tell people “hey’ it’s available in stores now.” There was no outpouring of anticipation, or build up events, and Sony has done a horrendous job of first party support.
PSVR2 is so good it will sell itself, right? They expect third parties to carry their device to victory, because, after all, it has worked with PlayStation home consoles. I haven’t seen an ad for a PS5 since….well…ever, and it’s selling like hotcakes. So Sony’s marketing team must look at that, and wonder why everything else can’t have the same success. This leads to eventual cancellations, early exits from products, and ventures into new fields.
Sometimes it does work fine. The PS Portal is an abysmal device, and yet was selling out for months. All it had going for it were some, rather confusing, hardware details and a crowd of people who desperately wanted a new PlayStation handheld. That’s it. It sold amazingly well, but it’s the exception, not the rule.
This should have ended with Concord, but instead we all got front row seats to the crap-tastic Sony marketing failure. Leading to the launch all Sony had shown for Concord was a simple gameplay trailer, some vibrant colors, and a cool looking CG trailer. That’s it. Most people didn’t even know the first beta weekend was opened to everyone at the last minute. Even me, a person that wanted to play the beta, had to physically search on the PlayStation store to find the game and unlock the beta. There were no home screen banners, no big advertisements for a week on their own PlayStation Store, and the game quite literally didn’t even exist to me on Steam.
When I tried to give away my beta codes I was met with, “what is that?” Nobody really knew about the game. Even my buddies that are well aware of PlayStation products had totally forgotten Concord existed. We had no idea who the studio was (which includes some industry all-stars by the way), we didn’t know about the characters, we didn’t even know how the game would play. But once you finally did play the game, you loved it.
Concord could very easily be one of those “sells itself” products because it’s a good game, but it has one massive roadblock stopping it…. Negative social feeds. I don’t know exactly why people are hating on the game before it ever releases, but it’s happening a lot. Every positive comment has been met with a landslide of people laughing and hating a game they never touched. This has killed multiple games already, and Concord has become the next in line because instead of retooling their advertising campaign, Sony let the game outright die in 10 days.
This is a highlight of why game events were so important to Sony, and the industry as a whole. Games are not visual media, they need to be played so that you can physically feel what it’s like to be in the world. I’ll agree with certain critics, visually Concord looks like a bland team shooter with uninspiring character design, but once you play the game you realize the mechanics are honestly top-tier, and it becomes addicting fast.
They already had a crowd of positivity. Almost everyone who’s played the game loves it.
If you look the other way, you can see how a game is properly introduced when it’s an entirely new IP. When Overwatch released we had multiple alpha weekends, beta weekends, and a ton of hype going into release. Blizzard announced the game and never stopped talking about it. Concord had absolutely none of that. Two abrupt beta weekends, both failures I might add, and then after launch Sony suddenly released character introductions. The same character intros that could have used blog posts, videos leading to release, and could have easily carried marketing an entire year. Getting to know these characters seems like the easiest marketing plan ever developed.
I’ve not seen one ad for it when I haven’t purposely sought it out intentionally. I didn’t see many streamers (or influencers) playing over the beta weekend. I don’t see any plans for an esports like event for a game that is totally designed for it. Where is the hype for the developers behind it? The people that are literally icons in the industry built this game, and you’d never even know.
Concord is a new IP, a new cast of heroes, and it wasn’t going to survive by just throwing it into the wind and hoping a name brand backing was going to support it. It could have easily benefited from an “early access” program, where all the direct feedback Sony mentioned when pulling the game could have been sorted by launch. A hero shooter with no ultimates? They could have had it playable at events like PAX, “Not” E3, GamesCom, etc…. And they didn’t. It could have been the highlight of major conferences and even PSX, where you easily get people riled up for new games. Getting people into the door was the one objective they had.
Sony has seemingly gone backwards with marketing as of late and it continues to get worse. Sony dropped out of major events like E3 (and not E3), canceled fan events like PSX, and their marketing for games has dwindled to underwhelming State Of Play streams. Speaking as a long time diehard PlayStation fan, the excitement is honestly gone. The only reason it’s still working is because the competition has been even worse.
Sony used to do a great job of marketing and getting hype going for basically any franchise they touched. During E3 one year they set up a whole warehouse dedicated to looking like a level from The Last Of Us. People couldn’t stop talking about it for weeks, and journalists were actively covering their game before Sony even said a word. During previous shows they had vibrant events celebrating their games, and even one liners about their competition on E3 stages led to free coverage. During PSX Sony had an entire event dedicated to their own games, their own press conference, all eyes on them to talk about new games and give fans a chance to test out new games, with direct feedback from the people that play their games. Even generations before, Sony was great with “viral marketing” People were excited to see what Sony had planned, and then it all vanished.
More than simply throwing money at ads, we need people to be aware of the games/products. Why was one of the only first party titles releasing this year not being paraded around town? Posters in stores, merchandise, and collectable figures. Where are the PS5 faceplates or limited edition consoles? If Sony isn’t excited for their own new release, a title they stated was “going to be their biggest franchise ever,” then what is the point?
Starting a new IP is scary, you don’t know if it’ll boom or bust, but if the publisher has no faith in it, then why would fans? Sony has some of the best developers under their belt, and potentially a huge game franchise about to sprout, and they simply didn’t seem to care.
More importantly than asking where Concord goes from here, I think Sony needs to step back and realize just how badly their cost cutting in marketing has hurt them. The second the competition steps up, Sony will be in a real bad place.
